


the devil's got nothing on me my friend

by orphan_account



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: 1960s, Attempted Murder, F/F, I don't know what I'm doing, Lesbians, M/M, Murder, Murder Mystery, Probably a happy ending, Violence, enemies? friends? partners? to lovers, francesca night night and ricky are siblings, i don't know the rating yet, i dont know, i'm gonna edit these tags later, i've got nothing planned for it, im bad at tagging, im not proud of this, partners in crime to lovers, ricky seems scary but hes really a softy, some stealy bois, sorta? well see how in detail i get with that, they're both oblivious when it comes to feelings, this is my first fic in this fandom, trains ;), what the fuck do i tag this, will i finish this? we'll see, will it be my last? probably not, yeah lets go with that, yearning gays
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:00:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22326742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: If you were to tell Tinsley that he would be an accomplice in one of the biggest art thefts in history, he would laugh in your face. Lifes funny like that, leading us to believe that we have our lives under control, but what fun would life be without a little anarchy?The events that took place to effect the mess of the situation that Ricky Goldsworth and C.C. Tinsley had found themselves in showed an example of that. Anarchy, but in a fun sort of way, the devil went to hell for a reason after all, and he sure had some fun doing it.a corrupt cop and a petty criminal made a deal that could possibly, be the death of them. it seems that death is around every corner when it starts looking for you.
Relationships: "Night Night" Bergara/"Legs" Madej, Francesca Norris/Original Female Character(s), Holly Horsely/Francesca Norris, Ricky Goldsworth/C. C. Tinsley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. a detective and two criminals walk into a bar.

**Author's Note:**

> okay, I'm sorry.
> 
> I'm kinda just doing my own thing with the characters, and I don't really know where this story is going from here, I don't really have anything planned out, I'm just writing down the first thing that comes to mind.
> 
> the first chapter isn't very good, I'm gonna try and go into more detail with the next few and make it seem a little less fast-paced, I didn't really take my time on this first one. hopefully, you enjoy it tho, and if you do, might as well stick around for the next few. ;)
> 
> name is taken from the song beekeeper by Keaton Henson, which is pretty much the inspiration for this fic.
> 
> (i finished and edited this at like two or three in the morning so if some parts sound weird its because I wrote in the early hours of the day and am incredibly sleep-deprived.)

1967

“FUCK!”  
Tinsley pushed Ricky to the side as the bullet came dangerously close to colliding with his shoulder but instead grazing it after being pushed out of the way.  
He mumbled a quiet, shocked thanks before grabbing Tinsley’s wrist and running off to hide.  
This was not how this was supposed to go.

About a year earlier

If you were to tell Tinsley that he would be an accomplice in one of the biggest art thefts in history, he would laugh in your face. Lifes funny like that, leading us to believe that we have our lives under control, but what fun would life be without a little anarchy?  
The events that took place to effect the mess of the situation that Ricky Goldsworth and C.C. Tinsley had found themselves in showed an example of that. Anarchy, but in a fun sort of way, the devil went to hell for a reason after all, and he sure had some fun doing it.  
Tinsley had mixed feelings about the law, which wasn’t very good when you worked as a detective.  
should a person go to jail if they killed someone for the greater good? What if the person was truly, a very horrible person, should someone go to jail for killing them?  
He didn’t like asking himself these questions, he kept them to himself, didn’t voice them, and if a man were to stay free and un-guilty for killing someone who did horrible, unspeakable things to people, who was he to intervene.  
There were days where he would sit and ponder why people thought that God was one of the most amazing things to exist when he’s killed so many good people, yet someone was judged and treated horribly for just living their life.  
He didn’t always understand people, why they did the things they did, he would try to read their emotions, but he never seemed to know what they were thinking.  
Despite this, he was a very good detective, and he almost always got the job done, going to any length to put whoever he was looking for behind bars.  
It was the middle of summer when he met Ricky Golsworth, and if he had known at that time what would have led him too, he would have never taken the case.  
Looking back, he thought it would have been easy.  
The case had started when a woman in about her sixties or seventies called abut a burglary and attempted murder.  
From what they had been told, a man broke into the house while the woman was out getting groceries and apparently didn’t know that she had a husband because he panicked when he saw him sleeping on the couch and tried to shoot him before fleeing the scene with an expensive necklace passed down to the woman’s family for generations.  
“It was priceless! It was my great grandmothers, I don’t know what I’m gonna do without it!”  
The woman didn’t take much mind to her husband, who had survived but now had a wound on his shoulder from where the bullet hit him.  
It didn’t seem that hard to solve, a break-in. He had dealt with worse than that, arrest the criminal, put him behind bars, move on.  
But of course, that wouldn’t be a very interesting story, would it?  
The woman’s husband didn’t have much of a Description of the man, he had been asleep while the man had broken in the house.  
He woke up to the sound of a bullet and then the pain in his arm, the criminal fled before he could get a good look at him.  
“It was a man though, I know that for sure” He had told Tinsley the day after being shot in the shoulder, he was staying at a hospital a few blocks away from the house at the time, just for a few days to recover.  
“I saw his head before he ran out of the door.”  
The only description they got of the man was that he had dark curly hair, which wasn’t very useful to Tinsley.  
The case had been fairly quiet for a while, they didn’t have any new leads or suspects.  
It wasn’t until a hot June day they had gotten a call from a man just a few blocks away from the station, similar story, the owner of the house had left for work, gotten off his shift early, and came home to find that he was being robbed.  
This time, however, the victim had gotten a good look at the man’s face before he ran from the house and quickly managed to scramble into the car parked across the street, a red 1954 mustang.  
The victim had given a good description of the man, and he wasn’t the first. They had found that the guy had been doing this for years, a few of the victims even being shot like the first man. From what Tinsley had found, none of them had died, but there were times where they came dangerously close.  
Most of the cases were left unsolved, no one could figure out who this man was, so the cases were left to collect dust over time.  
Tinsley had found that in most of these cases, the criminal wasn’t as sloppy as usual, so why was he any different now? Perhaps he had gotten too used to it and slipped up?  
Who knows, didn’t matter.  
For now, the goal was to find him, and Tinsley figured he could do that.  
But it wasn’t that easy.  
The first lead on finding him was when a young woman had come home to see him driving away from her house with most of her belongings in the back of his car, the same 1954 red mustang from before.  
she didn’t just see the man from the previous cases either, she also saw a woman around the same age, sitting in the passenger seat.  
She described the woman to them too, who, based on what she had told them, looked fairly similar to the man, same curly dark hair, same skin tone, same chocolate brown eyes, slight freckles painted on their cheeks.  
Tinsley had guessed that they were related, siblings, or cousins perhaps.  
The owner of the house had ran to her car and followed the two for about an hour before losing them in a small town in the middle of nowhere.  
She’s called the police again, after first calling them after getting in her car to follow the two, t ignoring the advice to stay where she was given to her by the operator.  
Tinsley was glad she did because he managed to find and follow the two after the woman had told them where she lost them.  
He had followed them for a few miles before eventually stopping at an old hotel on the outskirts of Kansas City.  
He had waited in his car as the two entered the hotel, waiting a few minutes before what eventually seemed like enough time to not seem suspicious, then following the two in.  
The hotel was a little old, and unpopular due to the murder that took place there in the 30s, but otherwise, it was very nice.  
Everything in there seemed like something out of a Victorian mansion. There was a nice bar, with a big fireplace that was cracking and popping, giving it a pleasant glow. And just about everything was lined with some kind of material that was probably more expensive than Tinsley’s house. Velvet everything.  
There were a few guests scattered throughout the bar next to the main hall,  
a man that looked quite similar to himself, with the difference of hazel eyes instead of blue.  
Another man sat across from him, he looked a lot like the man that Tinsley’s had been following, for a second, he thought it was him, but the man and woman that he had been following were standing in front of him at the desk, having hushed conversation that Tinsley couldn’t pick up, while a cheerful looking woman at the desk gave the man his key and asked if he needed any help with his bags.  
It took him a second to answer, he looked worried and his face had gone a bit pale.  
He looked back up at the woman behind the desk before muttering “no, it’s fine, we can take them up.”  
He glanced behind himself as he said it, making eye contact with Tinsley, making it obvious that he knew who Tinsley was. He grabbed a bag that had been sitting at his side and led (his sister? Cousin? Girlfriend? Friend? Accomplice?) The woman next to him up the stairs behind him.  
Tinsley had a quick conversation with the woman at the desk, who gave him his key and got a bellhop to take the bag that he kept in his car for stakeouts to his room.  
He didn’t immediately go to his room, instead, he went over to the bar, sitting at a lone table at the end of the room.  
He made some quick notes on who was there, something he had learned from being a detective over the years, never forget a person, remember everything about them, if a stranger could be an angel in disguise, they could easily be a demon too. Don’t trust anybody, or you’ll end up a dead man.  
There were a few people there other than the two men he saw earlier, there was also a young woman in a nice red dress and dark brown hair in a high ponytail, along with a man with light brown hair that was turning white, and an emotionless expression that looked like he had seen about everything and at that point was just numb to emotions, must be nice Tinsley thought for a second before examining the other people in the bar.  
There was an old man in what he guessed was his seventies sitting alone in the corner of the room, a stern expression on his face, he lifted his eyes for a second, meeting Tinsley’s glance, and a chill rolled down Tinsley’s spine. The man was simply putting it, unsettling. He looked like he had been driven mad with knowledge, horrible, horrible knowledge.  
He had the face of someone who would kill a man without a second thought. Yeah, unsettling was one way to put it.  
The was another man sitting a table away from him, in about his late forties or early fifties, the man had brown hair and kind eyes, he looked like he had walked off the set of a western. Cowboy hat sat on the table in front of him and old, scuffed cowboy boots on his feet.  
He thought about calling Horsley, just for backup in case the pair of criminals decided to run off in the night or some time when he was unarmed. Horsley was his partner who usually worked with him on cases like this, but had a lot of paperwork to get in before next week.  
He admired Holly, in a friendly sort of way. She was a friend, and a loyal one, always there when you needed her.  
She was one of the only people who accepted him for simply being himself.  
It seemed everyone judged you for something you can’t control, but never praised you for the things you can.  
Holly was kind, she was a good friend, she always had been.  
Tinsley had often joked about how she acted like his mom, even though she as only about two or three years older than him. He would never tell her, but he was happy she cared for him like that, making sure he had enough to eat, that he had slept enough in the last few hours, had gotten something to drink.  
His mother had died from lung cancer when he was fifteen, funny how when you lose someone so important to you, you forgot how to do such simple things. Everything seems so hard when there’s no motivation to do it. He didn’t call her, instead deciding to continue examining the guest littered throughout the bar.  
What were they doing here? Why at this hotel? Were they on vacation? Visiting family? Or maybe they there trying to escape from the old lives that they led? Maybe this is the best day of their lives, or perhaps the worst? Were they running away from the law? Running away from the truth, running into lies? What were they doing in this bar? Are they taking a drink to forget something or someone? Or are they having a celebratory drink? Is this the last day of their life? Or perhaps the first of a new one? Maybe they’ll meet the love of their life today, maybe they’ll meet their worst enemy.  
He often asked these questions about strangers, he was fascinated by people, he didn’t particularly like them all the time, but he found them interesting.  
He wondered what kind of lives they led, what their home life was like. Sometimes he would see a stranger and think about them for days, come up with little scenarios that they starred in. Just to never think about them again.  
It was something he was good at, he assumed it was because of his job. The thing with being a detective is that you had to remember every person, remember every detail, never forget. Get into people's business, it was in the job description. And he was very good at it, it was a talent really.  
He thought about the woman in the red dress leaning against the bar, she seemed comfortable with the place like she had been there before, knew the people, was used to it.  
She had a sort of air to her that just made you like her, she had gotten into a conversation with the bartender. He was telling her some kind of story and as he finished she let out a bright laugh that could light the darkest soul. He brought his attention to the man with the cowboy hat.  
The man with the hat looked rather lively like he was in a room filled with friends rather than strangers. The other people in the room looked rather bored, uninterested in what was going on in other’s lives, stuck in their own heads.  
The man with brown hair that had started to white looked like he didn’t want to be there. He wasn’t drinking his drink, he was just sitting there looking off into the distance. Tinsley’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone walking into the bar. The two culprits  
walked into the bar, funny how that sounds like the start of a joke, a detective and two criminals walk into a bar, but oh, it was no joke.  
Tinsley’s eyes met the man and for a second, he was considerably shorter than him, and now that he got a good look at him, he realized he was also pretty attractive, incredulously so. His freckles danced across his face like stars, and his eyes had an intense attracting glow. The man looked like he made a deal with the devil for his looks, too bad he was a criminal.  
The man met Tinsley’s stare and glared at him for a second before turning to the woman and whispering something to her, she nodded and they went and sat at the bar on the other side of the room.  
Tinsley got up from his seat and sauntered casually over to the two, he tried to make it look natural like he was just going to order a drink and didn’t notice the two beside him.  
He ordered a drink and then turned to look at the man sitting at the bar two seats away from him. He smiled at him, he did not smile back.  
“Hello.” he had learned that there were ways to make people talk, you had to gain their trust, causal conversation was a good way of doing that,  
The man seemed hesitant to answer for a second, but he muttered a quiet “hello,” and then turning away as if to stop the conversation.  
“What brings you here.” he tried to get more than a word out of him.  
“Same as you I suppose.”  
“You’re also here for a business trip?” Tinsley lied.  
The man stayed quiet for a second before replying. “No, I guess not.”  
Tinsley decided to stop pushing the question of why the man was here and instead asked: “What’s your name?” the man took a sip of his drink and looked Tinsley over with a judging sort of interest. The way you looked at someone you didn’t like but listened to anyway. “Ryan, Ryan Bergara.”  
Tinsley was positive that wasn’t true. He found that people often lie, it’s in their nature.  
“Quite a nice little hotel, kinda gruesome the murder that happened here though.”  
‘Ryan’ glanced over at him, he didn’t look like he particularly wanted to continue his conversation with Tinsley, but he seemed interested in the topic.  
“You know, they never found out who that man was, They don’t think he even used his real name when he checked into the hotel.”  
Tinsley nodded, “heard about that.”  
“I bet he was in some deep shit to get himself killed liked that.” Tinsley looked over at him, a bit interested himself. “There was another man involved in the murder, I’ve heard, bet he was the one who killed him.”  
Tinsley nodded. “Don, I think his name was?” ‘Ryan’ nodded before taking another drink from his glass and replying. “You seem to know a lot about that murder huh detective.”  
“Detective?” ‘Ryan’ gave him a sly smile before saying, “did I say detective? sorry don’t know why I did that.” he knew exactly why, and the sly smile he gave Tinsley didn’t hide that.  
The conversation between the two of them ceased after that, there were no interactions other than the occasional glance at each other. The woman that he had come in with was having an animated conversation with the woman In the red dress leaning against the bar, who had finished her conversation with the bartender.  
Eventually, Tinsley rose from his chair to go, somewhere, he hadn’t decided yet, somewhere where he would find more information than he was finding now.  
He walked up the stairs to his room, he sat in there for a bit, thinking, reading a chapter out of the book he kept in his car.  
He didn’t realize until after a while how late it had gotten, it was nearly 2:30 am. The bar must have been closed by now.  
He looked out the peephole in the door and was surprised to see ‘Ryan’ and the woman standing out by the room across the hall.  
They were holding the luggage that hey had come here with. It downed on Tinsley that they were leaving.  
Tinsley waited until they had started going down the stairwell before coming out of his room and following them carefully down the stairs, making sure to grab the gun out of his bag.  
He stood at the top of the stairs trying to listen to the hushed conversation between the two.  
He caught bits of English between heated arguments in Italian.  
“e ' stupido, cazzo!” he heard the woman say, she sounded annoyed., they were arguing about something.  
“non possiamo stare qui, Francesca, do you want to go to jail?”  
“I’ve gotten out of situations like this before, you need to stop running whenever you feel anxious, it pathetic! ”  
“There is a detective across the hall from us!” ‘Ryan’ nearly yelled  
“Oh shut up Ricky! Like that man could put us behind bars, have you seen him? He’s practically a noodle with limbs.”  
Tinsley had heard many colorful insults directed towards him, but that was new.  
He didn’t pay much attention to the insult, ‘Ricky’ was what he paid attention to, he knew the pair’s names now, if he didn’t end up arresting them now, he could work with the names.  
Their argument came to a halt when Ricky noticed Tinsley standing at the top of the stairs, his eyes widened and before Tinsley could register what was happening, both men were pointing their guns at each other.  
Neither said a word for a second, it was just silence.  
Slowly Tinsley opened his mouth and uttered, “put the gun down, I just-”  
His voice was drowned out by the sound of a bullet and a scream, but neither was fired from their guns.  
The sound had come from downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t speak Italian, nor do any of my friends, so I just used some random website to translate it, I’m sorry I’m sorry if it’s wrong, if it is here’s what is was suppose to be:
> 
> e ‘ stupido, cazzo!  
> It’s fucking stupid
> 
> non possiamo stare qui  
> We can’t stay here
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading the first chapter, I don’t know what I’m gonna do for the rest yet.  
> If you want to come check out my tumblr it’s GentleCryptid :)


	2. if you dance with the devil, you gotta live with it when he sets you on fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I'm doing :')
> 
> (also I noticed some mistakes I the last chapter, but I really don't feel like editing it so.... sorry)
> 
> I'm not a doctor, and I have never been shot so I could be totally wrong about the bullet thing, just kinda basing that off of movies and stuff...

All three had rushed down the stairs to see the rest of the guests crowded downstairs. Most in pajamas, some still dressed, all very confused and disgruntled, most awoken to the sound of the bullet and loud scream.  
Tinsley pushed a few people out of the way to get a good look at the man with a bullet in his leg, the crowde had made a small circle around the man, who was groaning in pain, holding his leg tightly.  
It took Tinsley a second to realize that the man lying on the floor was the same man he saw before in the bar, the one that looked strangely similar to Ricky, the man that sat across from him at the bar, the one that eerily resembled himself, was kneeling beside him.  
The woman that was working at the desk earlier was standing nearby, panicking, though she was obviously trying to act calm.  
She was on the phone, calling an ambulance.  
“Oh god, I should probably call a cop-” the woman was rudely interrupted by Ricky and the man currently lying on the floor, holding his leg in a death grip.  
“Don’t!” both simultaneously said, they looked at each other and an agreement was made between their eyes, like a private conversation that no one else could hear.  
It was obvious from their eyes that they knew each other, Tinsley would have to look into that.  
Tinsley continued before either could finish.  
“there's no need, I’m a detective.”  
Both men looked over at him, mouths slightly agape before they could completely process what he said.  
Ricky closed his mouth for a second to quietly retort “thought you were on a business trip.”  
Tinsley didn't say anything back, instead focusing on the man laying on the floor.  
“Don't take out the bullet yet, wait until the paramedics get here, if you take it out now, he could bleed out or the wound will get infected.”  
The man crouched down beside him was whispering something in his ear, it looked as if he was trying to calm him because the man seemed more soothed with every word whispered to him.  
Tinsley knelt down in front of the man, trying his best to make his voice more calming like the man kneeled beside him, he brought down his voice a bit.  
“What's your name, sir?”  
The man hesitated for a second before answering, “Nicholas.”  
Tinsley took a good look at his leg before meeting his eyes again.  
“Do you know who shot you?”  
The man shook his head, “no, I was... Looking away when it happened.”  
He was being mendacious, this was proved by the way he looked at Ricky and another silent conversation passed between the two of them, it felt like a thousand words were exchanged between the two without really saying anything.  
Tinsley nodded, taking a good look at the wound. “You'll be fine as long as an ambulance gets here quickly.”  
The man- Nicholas - nodded, causally nuzzling into the man at his side, still holding his leg tight with his left hand. Tinsley got up, speaking some hushed words with the hotel attendant before standing away from the crowd.  
Tinsley stood by the stairs for a minute, taking in the crowded hotel filled with guests, nonchalantly observing the hall.  
He looked over the two from before, not wanting them to run off somewhere, unnoticed by the crowd. Ricky knew the man who was shot, which just added more speculations into who Ricky was, and who he knew, and what he did, which was one of the most terrifying questions Tinsley could ask himself. Who was this man, and what has he done to others?  
He looked Ricky over gradually getting a satisfactory look at him. Taking him in like a man dying of thirst would drink water. Ricky met his eyes, letting them linger down his body before going back to his eyes.  
He looked at him like he was a challenge, a game to be won. It was honestly threatening, but exciting in a way, like roses, beautiful despite their thorns.  
He expected Ricky to avert his eyes, maybe try to keep away from the detective, he seemed rather eager to about an hour ago.  
What Tinsley didn't expect was Ricky to strut over to him, giving him a charming smile.  
Something about Ricky’s smile was strange, it was warm and friendly, but at the same time gave Tinsley an eerie feeling, like a shark trying to look friendly to drag in its catch.  
A smile that held a thousand secrets.  
“Hello detective, is it okay that I call you detective, or is there a preferred name you would rather go by?”  
“Tinsley is fine-”  
“You know what? It doesn’t matter, I'm gonna call you detective anyway, it's got a ring to it, doesn't it Detective?”  
Tinsley held back a sigh, he had dealt with people like this, the ones that were too cocky to admit that they did something wrong, he had learned to be patient. You cant let them know that there getting to you, it'll just make them more powerful  
Tinsley avoided the question, instead deciding to ask about Nicholas.  
“How do you know him?” he jerked his head in the direction of Nicholas.  
Ricky hesitated for a moment, “he's my.. Cousin.” he could tell by the way he said it that it was a lie.  
Tinsley didn't say anything, the two sat in silence for a second, an unspoken question floated between them, ‘whos gonna break first?’  
“And who was that woman with you? Girlfriend?”  
Ricky seemed disgusted by the idea, making a face like he had eaten something unpleasant.  
“God no, she's my sister.”  
He only seemed to realize what he said after he said it, glaring at nothing.  
“Whos the man beside him?” he asked, referring to the man kneeling beside Nicholas.  
“His boyfriend.”  
He answered it simply, the way you would refer to a girlfriend, Tinsley respected him for that, it wasn't a big deal, and it shouldn’t be treated like one.  
They stood in silence for a few minutes, a content silence laced with danger.  
The woman working at the desk made everyone go back to their rooms as the ambulance finally pulled up.  
A few people had retreated to the bar away from the scene, lounging peacefully while a man with a bullet in his leg was being put into an ambulance in the next room.  
She let Tinsley stay downstairs by the scene, she figured that it would be better to have the detective downstairs, just in case.  
Tinsley continued to stand by the stairs, taking in the scene of the injured man and the few people scattered throughout the bar, which the hotel employees had chosen to open late to reduce panic over the incident.  
After the man had been taken into the ambulance and was currently being driven to the nearest hospital, Tinsley left his spot at the stairs, walking into the bar where a few of the occupants were sitting or drinking in silence.  
The woman - Francesca - was chatting with the woman that was there last night, now dressed in a light blue nightgown instead of a deep red dress.  
She leaned in close to the girl, whispering something in her ear, she let out a bright giggle as Francesca pulled back, scooting her chair closer to her.  
Ricky was standing alone, leaning carelessly against a jukebox in the back of the room, humming softly along with the music.  
Other than the four of them, there wasn't anybody else other than the tired looking bartender  
in the bar, most of the guests had gone up to bed or checked out after Nicholas was shot.  
Something about the lone scene was..nice, in a way.  
It was peaceful, which was funny considering that two fugitives and possibly a killer were in the room.  
Tinsley stood in the doorway for a minute, wondering if it would look suspicious if he walked over to the man again, before realizing that it wouldn't matter, he knew that he was a criminal, and Ricky knew that he was a detective.  
He strolled casually over to Ricky, waiting for him to say something.  
They sat in awkward silence as the music hummed quietly from the jukebox. After a while, they were the only ones there other than the bartender, Francesca had already gone, dragging the woman behind her, giggling cheerfully as they ran up the stairs.  
Ricky didn't seem to notice he was there, or maybe he just didn’t care, humming along to the music playing softly.  
The lights in the room were dim, making it harder to see, casting a soft glow on Ricky.  
Ricky’s humming came to a stop as the song on the jukebox slowing faded out.  
He gasped when a new song started playing, humming along with the tune once again.  
Tinsley looked at him expectantly, Ricky went a bit red and softly murmured, “I love this song,” before casting his eyes down to the floor.  
Tinsley smiled a bit, and before he could really stop himself, he was asking the man, “would you like to dance?”  
Ricky looked a bit surprising for a second, before giving him a fond smile and nodding like an old friend would greet you after not seeing you for years.  
Tinsley had never been very good at dancing, he had done it a few times at weddings and parties, but his height made it more awkward and harder than it should be.  
Ricky was pretty small, so he expected it to be the same with him, but it was surprisingly easy to dance around to the slow pace of the music, guiding him slowly with his hands on his hips.  
Ricky continued to hum along to the music, and it felt... Surprisingly mundane. Familiar in a way, and intimate, not in a sexual way, but friendly, close, it didn’t feel like they were dancing for the first time. It was more like an old couple dancing for the hundredth time, and it was simply putting it, quite nice.  
Strange, maybe, but they didn’t like each other, they would kill each other if told, although it would come with sudden guilt and maybe even regret, they would still do it.  
Tinsley found it a little funny, here he was dancing around with a criminal he was supposed to be arresting. But life was too quick to waste moments like this, and besides, it’ll be one interesting story one day.  
They danced for a while in peaceful silence other than the song playing and peaceful humming, which was soon interrupted by the bartender.  
“I don’t mean to intervene, but it’s getting quite late, I’m about to clock out, you should probably get to bed.”  
Tinsley didn't want to let Ricky out of his sight if he lost him his boss wouldn’t be pleased.  
“This has been a fun detective, but I really should be going.”  
Ricky left the room, glancing behind him at Tinsley as if an invitation to follow him.  
It didn't dawn on Tinsley what Ricky meant until after he was walking up the stairs.  
But then he was gone, Tinsley quickly following behind, running up the stairs hoping to catch him before something else could happen.  
He felt like a dog, running after its owner in pure desperation.  
He caught him in the hallway before he could disappear into his room, giving him a look he couldn’t place, before going into his room, leaving the door unlocked.  
Maybe it was the euphoria of the situation, but Tinsley really didn't realize the choice he was making at the moment, too caught up in the dark lights and soft music mixed with the drunken happiness.  
He paused before entering the room, just staring at the door for a second.  
There was a brief second when a little voice in his head told him not to do this. ‘You're risking your job! You could be risking your life!’ it screamed.  
‘No one has to know.’ he thought back.  
It was stupid, but he wasn’t thinking straight, so instead of following his gut feeling, he slowly opened the door.  
He walked into the room cautiously, expecting Ricky to be waiting for him, instead, there was nobody in the room. It was completely empty.  
A chill ran down his spine but before he could act on it and run away, Ricky had knocked him to the floor, straddling him and holding his hands over his head so he couldn't move.  
Ricky let out a deep laugh, a laugh that sounded psychotic, it didn't sound like a real laugh, it was the laugh of someone who had lost their mind.  
“Fran was right, you really are a fool.”  
Tinsley didn't say anything, instead glaring at the man.  
“Aww, don't be angry, its cute really.” Ricky gave him a Venomous smile before pounding his head against the floor.  
He didn't immediately register what had happened, for a minute he just felt dizzy, then he felt a sharp pain to the head. There was a loud ringing in his ears before Ricky took his head and slammed it against the floor again.  
The pain in his head got worse the more he did it, on the third time he could feel cold blood flow down his lip from his nose. By the fourth time he had started to blackout, the room started to fade as the pain in his head got worse, before fading completely as he was plunged into darkness.

He woke the next morning with a horrible headache.  
At first, he thought it was because he had drank too much, before remembering the events of last night.  
He was lying in a bed in a room that wasn't his, the same one he was in last night.  
He rose from the bed to rush to the bathroom, dark blood was dried under his nose.  
He wiped it off, with a stray cloth, staining it with the deep red blood.  
The room was perfectly silent, and empty. There was no evidence that another person had been there, it was completely clean, and all items that had belonged to Ricky was gone.  
He wandered around the room for a minute, looking for anything that could prove that someone else had been in the room, that it wasn't some kind of strange dream or hallucination.  
He couldn't find anything other than a note that had been let on the dresser beside the bed.  
He grimaced while reading it, written in neat letters was a note that read,  
‘Hope your head doesn't hurt too much, that was fun. you’re a good dancer.’  
He let out a deep sigh and continued to read the second line.  
‘Don't come looking for me or Fran, you won't find us, were probably long gone by now.  
-Ricky Goldsworth ;)’

This was going to be harder than Tinsley thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aghasgssaghjds, thank you for reading chapter 2! I'm gonna try and update more frequently than once a week.
> 
> also, did you notice the chapters a bfu quote ;)
> 
> (Does anyone knows how to edit the notes so it doesn’t do that? )  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t speak Italian, nor do any of my friends, so I just used some random website to translate it, I’m sorry I’m sorry if it’s wrong, if it is here’s what is was suppose to be: 
> 
> e ‘ stupido, cazzo!  
> It’s fucking stupid
> 
> non possiamo stare qui  
> We can’t stay here
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading the first chapter, I don’t know what I’m gonna do for the rest yet.  
> If you want to come check out my tumblr it’s GentleCryptid :)


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